Smith set his phone down and stood still for a mont.
He'd go to Malibu. But he had a few minutes, and the Dragon Balls weren't going to survey themselves.
He settled his focus and reached outward—the particular sense he'd developed over three full cycles, less like searching and more like listening for a frequency only he was tuned to. The Dragon Balls had weight in the world. Not physical weight, but presence.
He found the first one quickly. Then stopped.
It was encased in sothing—a sealed container, deliberately shielded. He could feel the ball but couldn't get a clear read on the holder. The interference was intentional. Whoever had it knew that Dragon Balls could be sensed, and had prepared accordingly.
He moved to the second. Sa result. A different container, possibly a different location, the sa careful insulation. He couldn't even determine whether the two balls belonged to the sa person.
Smith didn't dwell on it. Soone—or multiple parties—had already figured out basic operational security around Dragon Ball collection. That was worth noting. He filed it and moved on.
The third ball opened to him clearly.
A face materialized in his mind's eye: striking, deliberate, the kind of beauty that announced itself before a person spoke. Smith went still.
Lorelei.
The Asgardian Banshee. He knew from his past mories on the show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and also from Asgardian lore, from what he understood of the Nine Realms' more dangerous exports. Her charm ability wasn't seduction in any conventional sense—it was an ambient radiation, constant and involuntary in the sense that she couldn't turn it off, though she could amplify it. Prolonged proximity to n tended to produce increasingly irrational loyalty. The effect compounded over ti.
She should be in Asgard's prison right now. That was how the AOS tiline ran.
Smith watched her through the connection—she was turning the Dragon Ball over in her hands, her expression cycling through sothing that looked like greed, then calculation, then a reluctant determination. She was talking to herself. He read her lips.
The rune-binding. She'd been released under terms, with Odin's wish locked into her through runic compulsion. If she won and didn't grant the specified wish, she died. The Dragon Ball was genuinely tempting her—he could see it—but she was smart enough to know the constraints around her.
So Odin has a wish.
Smith considered that. The last ti he'd visited Asgard, Odin had said nothing about Dragon Balls. They'd discussed Hela—her imprisonnt, the instability that would follow Odin's eventual death—and Odin had handed him a manual on Cosmic Cube operation instead. No ntion of Shenron, no ntion of wishes. Either Odin hadn't known then, or he'd been deliberately witholding it.
And now he'd sent a proxy rather than coming himself.
Smith turned that over. Why? Face was one explanation—it would be beneath the Allfather's dignity to compete in what amounted to a martial arts tournant against mortals and semi-immortals. But that didn't hold. Odin was pragmatic when it mattered. If he wanted sothing badly enough, dignity would be a secondary concern.
The more interesting answer was that soone had talked him out of it.
There was really only one candidate: the Ancient One. The Sorcerer Supre of Kamar-Taj had the Ti Stone, the political leverage across dinsions, and the particular kind of quiet authority that made gods hesitate before acting unilaterally on Earth. If anyone could have told Odin to keep his distance and been taken seriously, it was her.
Which ant she might be managing the board more actively than Smith had realized. He'd have to think about how to feel about that.
He released the connection. Three balls located, two unidentified, one confird with Lorelei. He'd get a more precise look at the map positions later with the Dragon Radar. For now, Malibu was waiting.
The news had hit Xu Xialing's phone before any of the official channels caught up with the live footage. She was already dialing Shang-Chi by the ti the second headline confird it.
"Shang-Chi. Tony's been attacked. His villa is gone—completely destroyed." She was moving as she spoke, already gesturing to Jon and the Death Dealer. "I'm coming to pick you up. We need eyes on that scene."
Shang-Chi, who had been thodically cross-referencing every scrap of intelligence the Ten Rings' nine investigation teams had sent back from the explosion sites—and finding very little that pointed anywhere useful—didn't hesitate. "I'll be outside."
They were on the road within minutes.
Sowhere over the Arican Southwest
The armor was in freefall before Tony fully understood he was awake.
"Sir. Sir—"
"Yeah." He blinked. The heads-up display was red in places it shouldn't be. "I'm up. Kill the alarm."
"Ergency protocol triggered at four percent power. Disabling now."
The freefall wasn't freefall—the thrusters were firing in short, uneven bursts, more controlled descent than crash. Barely. The ground ca up fast and Tony hit a two-lane road at the edge of a small town, the suit absorbing most of it, montum rolling him another twenty ters before he stopped against the road's shoulder.
He lay there for a mont, staring at the inside of his helt, listening to the sparks.
"JARVIS."
"Sir."
"There's snow." He could see it through the cracked display. Light flurries drifting down against a grey sky. "We're not in California."
"We are approximately five kiloters from Rose Hill, Tennessee."
Tony processed this. "Tennessee." He sat up, servos grinding. "I didn't plan Tennessee. The plan was to find Pepper. Why are we in Tennessee?"
"I planned this route, sir. Tennessee was already the confird destination before the attack."
"I planned that for later. After—" He stopped. It didn't matter. He was here. Rose Hill was where the thermal signature matched. Rose Hill was where the lead was. JARVIS had simply executed the last coherent directive in the queue.
"Open the suit."
"I'm experiencing a malfunction in the release chanism, sir."
"JARVIS."
"Opening now."
The plates folded back. Cold air hit him imdiately—the specific, unambiguous cold of a Tennessee winter that had nothing in common with Malibu evenings. Tony sat up from the road in a short-sleeved shirt, looked at the snowflakes settling on his arms, and made a rapid reassessnt of his situation.
"I'd better find sowhere to get out of this cold."
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